


If so, be patient, sister

by Kaleidoscope_Carousel



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-17
Updated: 2014-04-17
Packaged: 2018-01-19 17:33:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1478158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kaleidoscope_Carousel/pseuds/Kaleidoscope_Carousel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Laurel knows it was Sara, she just knows. How could she not? You don't spend almost an entire lifetime with someone and not recognise them under a tiny little mask from that close quarters. It's time to let Sara know she knows. Canon divergent after Birds of Prey.</p>
            </blockquote>





	If so, be patient, sister

**Author's Note:**

> I began this story as a small drabble of Laurel confronting Sara after the events of Birds of Prey and it kind of got away from me. Around three thousand words later and fully in canon divergent territory here we are. As always, constructive criticism is welcomed, please let me know how I can improve.

“I know it was you,” said Laurel as she came up to where Sara was wiping down the bar before her shift. She’d given Sara a few days, but it was time to come clean after what happened with Helena.

“What?” Sara asked, brows drawn together and lips pursed.

“I know it was you, the vigilante, the female one.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Sara said turning her back to Laurel so she could rearrange the bottles on the shelves.

“Come on, Sara, I’m your sister. You didn’t think I couldn’t put two and two together? You coming into my office, so certain that Helena was coming back to town, knowing about my sobriety, and those comments about sisters, not to mention,” she continued, leaning her elbow on the bar, “putting my safety over all the other hostages. I was wondering how far I could push it, though; it didn’t feel right to tell you at the time.” Sara turned to Laurel, giving up on alphabetising the liquor.

“Seriously Laurel, I have no idea what you mean. I was here when it all went down.” Laurel rolled her eyes.

“No you weren’t. You think I wouldn’t have checked that out first before confronting you? I asked Thea. You may have been here earlier, but you were off shift when everything happened. And don’t even try to use Ollie as an alibi because he was with me in the courtroom. Although. . .” Laurel’s eyes suddenly widened and her mouth dropped open. “Of course! Of course he would, the trial was just to throw us-- how stupid. Ollie is the Arrow!” 

“Hush!” Sara hissed, jumping over the counter and slamming her hand against her sister’s mouth, “Do you want the whole club to hear you? Eww!” she said as she pulled her hand away and wiped it on her jeans where Laurel’s tongue had left a wide wet patch. “Seriously? How old are you, twelve? You licked my hand!”

“Got you to remove it, didn’t I? Also, don’t ever put your hand over my mouth again or next time I’ll bite it.”

“Fine, I won’t. Just, stop shouting crazy theories in the middle of the bar. It’s not good PR for a potential DA.”

“I’ve only just got my job back, so I’m pretty sure that’s not in my immediate future—and stop trying to distract me!” Laurel continued, following Sara as she swept past her and slipped behind the bar once again. “And it’s not such a crazy theory if it got you to literally jump over the counter to shut me up, even if we’re practically the only ones in here. If you’re still trying to convince me that I’m not right, you’re not doing a very good job of it.”

“I’m not trying to convince you of anything, Laurel, I’m just trying to mind my own business and get ready for tonight.” Sara busied herself with unloading the dishwasher, hidden below the counter, and wiping down the glasses. Laurel leaned against the end of the bar, and twirled a piece of her hair in her fingers.

“Doesn’t being a bartender kind of clash with the whole vigilante thing? I mean both are pretty much nightshifts, so how does that work out?”

“Works out pretty well, actually, considering I’m not a vigilante and don’t have to worry about conflicting schedules,” Sara said crouching down as she picked the last few beer glasses out of the bottom of the dishwasher and placed them on the counter. Straightening up she looked straight at Laurel. “Did you really think that tactic would work? Even if I had anything to admit—which I don’t—you’d think my training would keep me from blurting things out accidentally. Give it a rest, Laurel. It wasn’t me. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to take these,” she said picking up a case of empties “out back to the recycling,” she brushed past Laurel and headed to the back door of the club.

“I don’t care, you know,” Laurel called after her. Sara froze, shoulders stiff, “I don’t care about what happened in the past, about what you had to do, who you were. Maybe you were right the other night, and I don’t really know you. You were gone for six years, after all, and a lot can happen in that time. But I know who you are now. You didn’t kill Helena and you still saved my life and the lives of all those other hostages. You stopped when you could have kept going. No matter how angry I was before, when you first came back—and believe me I was _so_ pissed—I’m over it now. You’re my sister, Sara. My baby sister and I love you. You can’t protect me forever, though. You can’t always be there to save me; God knows I wasn’t there to save you from whatever hell you went through. But I love you. No matter what. You have to know that.” Sara didn’t turn around, but her shoulders dropped, bottles rattling in the plastic tray as they banged against her thighs.

“I know. I love you too, but Laurel, I really have to get back to work now.”

“Okay, whatever,” Laurel said. She turned to go, but not before pointing at Sara’s retreating back and shouting “I’m not letting this go that easily!” Sara didn’t answer, and so Laurel left, slamming the door behind her.

Outside, Sara stood by the dumpster for a good five minutes breathing deeply in and out before heading into the basement of the club to take out her aggression on the practice dummy. 

“Whoa,” Felicity said from behind the bank of monitors, “what did Felix ever do to you?”

“Felix?” asked Sara.

“Yeah, I kind of gave him a name after the incident with Tockman. You may have noticed I talk a lot, and I find it helps me if I talk through my problems out loud, so with you and Oliver gone to dinner, and Dig out for take-out and nobody here I started talking to the dummy. That was before I had the brilliant idea of going after Tockman on my own, which may have come up because I was talking to Felix and I hope that doesn’t make me sound like I’m off my rocker.”

Sara laughed, “Considering the type of people we go up against on a daily basis, I think you’re the sanest of us all, Felicity.”

“Speaking of going up against people, you’re not really in uniform, unless you’ve traded in the sexy motorcycle look for the barfly look. Not that I think you’re actually a barfly, or anything but, yeah shutting up now.”

“You think my uniform is sexy?” Sara asked, teasing.

“I refuse to answer that on the grounds that I will embarrass myself again,” Felicity said and refused to look up from her screen.

“I’m dressed for work. Work-work not Arrow-work. I just needed to blow off some steam.”

“Why’s that?” asked Oliver, as he descended the stairs into the basement.

“Laurel.” Sara stated. “She’s figured out that I’m the Canary, and it seems she knows that you’re the Arrow, too. She doesn’t have any proof, but I know Laurel and she’s relentless. She won’t stop until she gets it.”

“Do you want me to go talk to her?” he said.

“If you think it’s going to help. I honestly don’t know. I mean, my dad knows who I am, so why shouldn’t Laurel?”

“You know there are good reasons we keep ourselves hidden. If too many people know, then it’s not a secret anymore.”

“I do know, you’re right. I just hated lying to her."

“But you’d hate her getting hurt even more. I’ll go, you’d better get back to work. Thea’s looking for you.”

“Oh crap, yeah, break time’s over. Thanks you two. I’ll see you later, ‘k?”

“Bye Sara,” Felicity called after Sara’s quickly disappearing back. “Do you really think going to talk to Laurel is the best idea?” Felicity asked Oliver.

“Well, I’m not sure what else I can do. I’ll be back later. Hold down the fort for me?” Oliver asked.

“Sure thing.” Felicity answered. “Looks like it’s just you and me, Felix,” she added after Oliver had left, “again.”

Laurel had only just managed to settle in on the couch when she heard the knock on her door. She rolled her eyes, but put down her book and went to answer it, checking the peephole first to see who was outside. She was greeted by the sight of Oliver Queen in suit and tie, looking distinctly uncomfortable, and so she opened the door and let him in.  
“Oliver, to what do I owe the pleasure?” she asked.

“I heard you and Sara had a little discussion at the club today.”

“Oh?” she said, “Did a little birdie tell you that?” 

“Not funny, Laurel,” he said, between gritted teeth.

“It kind of is, though. I mean why would you bother coming all the way down here to talk to me if I weren’t on to something? I thought you might come as the Arrow, but then I realised that you’d have to explain how you knew that I knew unless I was right all along. Which I am, by the way. Tea?” she asked, leaving him standing in the entryway as she busied herself in the kitchen. 

“No thank you,” he said. She could see his jaw working, even as she put the kettle on, and sighed.

“Relax, Ollie, I’m not going to tell anyone. It’s too soon after being reinstated to fan the flames, and I’m not about to risk my job again. I love what I do. Besides, I’m starting to realise that sometimes to get the results you need you have to go outside the law.”

“That doesn’t sound like the Laurel I know,” he said.

“Well the Laurel you know lost one boyfriend to a shipwreck, then another to an earthquake, became an alcoholic, got disbarred due to said alcoholism, found out her sister was still alive _and_ a masked vigilante, no less, and also has been taken hostage far too many times for her liking. That tends to change a person. Once you let the darkness inside. . .”

“It never comes out. You sound like Helena.”

“Well maybe Helena isn’t exactly a shining beacon of reason, but she does make a point. Look,” she said, turning to pour boiling water into a mug and dunking the tea bag in, “I’m not going to use the information against you, and I’m certainly not reporting you to the police because I only just got my sister back. I’m not about to lose her because of some vendetta that I created against you when I’d lost any sense of control over my life except for that focus on taking you down. Your secrets are safe with me; I just wish you’d trusted me enough to let me in on them without me figuring it out for myself.” 

“Our secrets might be safe with you, but you might not be safe with our secrets,” he said as she brushed past him to sit back down on the couch.

“And what exactly is that supposed to mean?” she asked crossing one leg over the other and placing the mug on the coffee table.

“It means there are some bad people out there. People who have a certain fixation on ruining my life, mainly through the people I care about. I don’t want you getting hurt.”

“Which life, Oliver? You seem to have two separate ones.” 

“Both.” he answered, voice clipped.

“Well then I don’t see how me not knowing your secret would possibly make a difference. At least now when I need a favour from the vigilante, or vigilantes, I can just text them.”

“Funny.” he said

“I thought so,” she replied. “If Sara sent you to throw me off this, you can tell her it isn’t working. I don’t know what or who you two think you’re protecting me from by keeping up this charade but I’m not blind and I’m not an idiot. I just want to talk to her, can you tell her that? I just want to talk without it turning into a sob fest or a fight,” Oliver nodded.

“I understand. I’ll let her know what you said.”

“Thanks Ollie. Oh and be sure to mention how you are even worse at keeping the secret when confronted than she is. I didn’t even have to use my lawyer voice on you,” Laurel said.

“Well it was obvious you weren’t going to give up. I’d rather not fight with you either. Goodnight Laurel,” he said reaching for the door. 

“Bye Ollie,” she answered.

“I take it things did not go so well?” Sara asked when she saw the storm cloud of an expression Oliver was wearing as he pushed through the crowds in Verdant.

“No. She knows and she’s not giving an inch,” he said. “Sara, I really think you need to go talk to her. I couldn’t convince her to let it go but I think that we can trust her with this.”

Sara slammed down a shot glass a little harder than was strictly necessary before filling it up with tequila to hand to a waiting customer. “Great job convincing her Ollie, you must’ve been so eloquent.” 

“You know as well as I do how stubborn Laurel is when she gets an idea in her head! What was I supposed to do, tell her she was imagining things?”

“Yeah, maybe. You know since Laurel is in on it, maybe we should start telling Thea. Or your mom!”

“Now is not the best time to discuss this,” he hissed.

“Yeah? Well you brought it up again. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a job to do, and apparently a mess to clean up when I’m finished,” she turned her back on him to reach for the scotch on the top shelf, clearly indicating the conversation was over. Oliver growled in the back of his throat and pushed off the bar to make his way downstairs. Hopefully Felicity had some leads on Slade, or some other baddie he could punch in the face.

Sara watched him go, eyes narrowed. It’s not that she didn’t want to tell Laurel, but that desire was fighting an epic battle inside her with the thought that Laurel could be in more danger if she got too wrapped up in things. And she really wished that she could’ve actually sat down with Laurel and talked to her, instead of her sister finding out in the middle of a rescue mission. She’d never been so glad that it was Friday night and Verdant was packed, so she didn’t have much time to think, just make and serve drink after drink after drink. Last call came before she realised it, and then the bar was empty, just her and Thea, and a couple of the waitresses left to tidy up and close everything down. Sara completed all of her tasks as swiftly as she could, and managed to duck downstairs before anyone noticed she wasn’t leaving with the rest of them. Oliver wasn’t back yet, and the basement was cold and empty without anyone there. She was too restless to stay put, she might at least put on the uniform and see if there were any misogynistic creeps she could take down, and maybe go check in on Laurel in the process. 

To her surprise, the light was still on in Laurel’s apartment, even though it was almost three in the morning. Laurel was sitting on the couch, going through what looked like court documents of some sort, piled up in manila folders. “I guess now is as good a time as any,” Sara said to herself. She took a running leap and caught the ladder of the fire escape to scramble up and knock on Laurel’s window.

Laurel jumped, and papers scattered everywhere. She glared through the window at Sara as she bent down to pick them up, but once they were all placed on the table, she went over to the window to let Sara in.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, as Sara climbed over the windowsill, “It’s the middle of the night.”

“I could ask you why you’re still up,” Sara replied, shutting the window behind her and following Laurel to settle down on the couch. 

“So since you’re not trying to disguise your voice anymore, I guess we’re past the pretence?”

“You wouldn’t take no for an answer, Laurel, so yeah, I guess we’re past the pretence. But it doesn’t mean I’m not upset that you had to push this. There are good reasons why we keep our identities secret.”

“Right, like a little mask and a voice synthesiser is really going to keep me from recognising my own baby sister? Who happens to have the same dimple on her chin, and use the same shampoo as the vigilante? You might fool strangers with that get-up Sara, but you can’t fool your own family, not from that close.”

“I just wanted to protect you, Laurel,” Sara said.

“From what?” Laurel asked.

“From the people who would try to hurt you and . . . and from me.”

“Sara, why would I need protecting from you?” Laurel asked, frowning.

“I told you the truth the other night. You don’t know me, not really, not anymore. I’m not the same Sara that got on the boat with Oliver. A lot of things have changed. I’ve changed.” Sara couldn’t look at Laurel; her eyes went everywhere but to Laurel’s face.

“Okay, but I want to know you. I’ve missed my sister. Tell you what, if you can’t look at me while we talk, let’s go for a walk.”

“At three in the morning?” Sara asked, eyes wide behind her mask.

“Well, we’re both up, and I’m pretty sure we’re both restless. Besides, I feel like I’m pretty safe from any evil, going for a walk with one of Starling City’s famous vigilantes.” Laurel stood and offered a hand to her sister. Sara shrugged.

“Why not?” she said.

They found themselves wandering by the river, Laurel shivering a little in the wind. “How are you not cold?” she asked.

“I’ve learned to deal with a lot of uncomfortable situations over the years. A little wind doesn’t bother me anymore,”

“Even in that get-up?” Laurel said, “I have to say, though, a corset? Really, Sara? It doesn’t seem all that practical.” Sara smiled.

“A lot of the people I fight are men, and not very nice men. Any distraction is an advantage for me. If they’re busy staring at my chest, they won’t see the blow coming. Besides, the corset holds everything in place so it’s not bouncing around while I’m running or jumping or fighting.”

“And the wig?”

“Mainly to throw people off. Why would they be looking for a blonde girl in a blonde wig? It also helps that if I lose any hair at the scene it’s not mine, and if I’m careless enough to let an opponent get a fistful of it during a fight, it doesn’t hurt me and so they lose the advantage and I can get away if the wig gets pulled off.”

“Well,” Laurel said, kicking at a pebble on the sidewalk, “you’ve really thought this through.”

“I had good training,” Sara said, “years worth of training.”

“From whom?” Sara’s expression darkened. 

“I don’t want to talk about it,” she said.

“Alright, but did it have anything to do with the psycho bitch who kidnapped mom and poisoned me?”

“She’s not psycho,” Sara snapped, “she just . . . she had a very different life than we did growing up. Where I was trained, where she lives, it’s part of the culture to use whatever advantage you can over an opponent. She knows how much my family means to me, so she used you to get me back. She was hurt. I hurt her, so she hurt me back,” Sara let the words sink in, watching as understanding slowly dawned on Laurel’s face and she stopped short.

“You and her? You were. . .” Sara nodded. “So you didn’t even finish college but you still had your collegiate lesbian phase?”

“It wasn’t a phase Laurel, I’m bisexual and I loved her so please, leave it alone.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t realise it was that serious.”

“Yeah well it was. But it’s over now.”

“Well, good!” Sara shot a glare at her sister.

“You don’t understand what it was like, what I went through. She was there for me, she looked after me. I’m sorry that you just got to see the worst side of her. There’s so much more than that.”

“I’m sorry, Sara, you’re right, I don’t know. But how can I when you won’t tell me?” Laurel jogged a couple of paces to try and catch up to Sara, who had already turned and continued to walk.

“There are just some things that I can’t talk about Laurel; I just don’t want you to know some things about me, alright? Can I just say that I went through hell, and I came back stronger and Nyssa was a big part of me surviving what I did.” Laurel reached out and grabbed Sara’s hand.

“Okay, so you can’t talk about it, but I meant what I said earlier, I don’t care what you did. I care what you are doing now. You’re my sister and I love you, even if your taste in women is almost as bad as your taste in men,”

Sara laughed, “Oliver notwithstanding?” she asked.

“That’s debatable, but at least we both had bad taste in that case,” Laurel said. She pulled at Sara’s hand and brought her in for a hug, holding her little sister as tightly as she could. “I’m not going to let you go again, I promise. Now, let’s go home.” Sara nodded against Laurel’s shoulder.

“Okay,” she whispered into Laurel’s coat, “let’s go home.”


End file.
